The Kay Tracey Mysteries were published under the name Frances K. Judd, a house pseudonym of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager.

The series was conceived as a response to the popularity of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and likewise features a teenage girl detective.

Kay Tracey is a 16-year-old amateur sleuth who lives with her mother and her older cousin Bill, a lawyer, in the fictional town of Brantwood.

Kay is often aided in solving mysteries by her two best friends, twins Wilma and Betty Worth,[3] and occasionally her boyfriend, Ronald Earle.

The series was created and supervised by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, with the actual stories being written by four women over the series' history: Elizabeth Mildred Duffield Ward, Mildred Wirt Benson, Edna Stratemeyer Squier (Adams's sister), and Anna Perot Rose Wright.

"[7] Adams and Squier continued, however, to supervise every detail of the books; in particular, they expressed concern over the way that Benson characterized the title heroine and her friends.

As Squier wrote to Benson at one point, "Kay and her chums at times speak too sarcastically and audaciously for growing girls.

The series was later updated and revised, first in 1951 and 1952 by Doubleday's Garden City Books,[9] although the only title to be substantially re-worked was the first volume, The Secret of the Red Scarf.

Three titles – The Forbidden Tower, The Mystery of the Swaying Curtains, and The Shadow on the Door – were dropped from the series for reasons which are unclear.

"[1] Kay lacks her own car, but must instead borrow her cousin Bill's, and her authority is "undercut by her clear identification as a schoolgirl.